The A9 is a SOC (system on a Chip) - runs at 1GHz and is based on an ARM Cortex A9 processor (a RISC - reduced instruction set computer microprocessor) and the Cortex-A9 NEON Media Processing Engine (MPE)
The competing Intel Atoms have the existing Atom processors (not only the N270) and the nVidia ION GPUs.
nVidia seem to be emphasizing gaming and 1080p on a Netbook.
You may or may-not want to do this.
The nVidia demo video on their website mentions GeForce 9600 transcoding - and shows Call of Duty 4 crashing.
nVidia are not currently comparing their offering to the Apple product (it is too new) - and they are comparing the ION to the Intel Graphics chipset - which is understandably better as it is a newer technology!
I am sure that this debate will emerge as the iPad comes on-line.
Early reviews of the iPad claimed that Apple are using their own brand of processor. While this is not strictly true they are NOT using the Intel product (which is a good thing IMO) - The ARM processor-based products are manufactured by licensed foundries.
Like ALL the Apple products they are manufactured off-shore using Asian manufactured components - even if they did use Intel or AMD.
arm cortex ion
ReplyDeleteion soc atom
ReplyDeleteSo someone is actually interested in the concept of "System on a Chip"
Intel N450 et al with their attendant chipsets with the nVidia ION technologies should be soon ripe for an update.
arm cortex vs nvidia ion
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThanks for providing such a great article, it was excellent and very informative.
as a first time visitor to your blog I am very impressed.